


Titan Arum

by Edie_Rone



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drinking, F/M, Grief, Hopeful Ending, On the Run, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 09:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20328787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edie_Rone/pseuds/Edie_Rone
Summary: She’s quiet, his love; she deals with grief by compartmentalizing and internalizing. She buries it deep, and the things that grow from it are such somber, subtle flowers that although anyone who meets her senses the heaviness, the gravity of her, he is sure that he alone can identify all the flora by root and vine.





	Titan Arum

The first scream very nearly takes them off the road, out of the blue and into the black. 

An unusually generous amount of shoulder on that particular curve — enough by bare inches — is all that keeps them from plummeting out over the canyon. He overcorrects, skidding into the opposite lane, which has the good fortune of being empty at that precise second. He manages to get back in their lane and keep driving, despite the reverberations of her screams inside the nondescript little Corolla, although he’s so panicked and shaky from the adrenaline dump that he knows he couldn’t handle even the smallest additional thing — a Coke can in the road, a truck approaching miles off, a bird dipping into sight — without flipping the fucking car. 

She’s still screaming, her hands gripping her face so hard it has to hurt but doing nothing at all to muffle the sound. Wordless shrieks, terrible to hear, stabbing directly into his eyes, his heart, his lungs — and they keep coming. They steal his ability to speak or make any sound at all. He just keeps driving, bug-eyed and cringing, his shoulders up around his ears and his hands grasping the steering wheel with all his strength. 

He wants to pull over somewhere, to stop, to try to help her, but there’s nowhere — no turnouts, no emergency lanes, nothing — and besides, the screaming seems to push him onward, denying him the capacity to think about anything else. 

After some miles, her voice is starting to shred a little, and then it sounds like she’s choking. He glances over to see her scrabbling at the fast-food bags littering the floor and a second later, she’s vomiting into one of them with hideous force — all that vodka and road food coming up at once. She rolls her window down, throws the bag out — the fresh air is undeniably a relief — then screams again, again, and again. 

They’re coming up on a small town. There’s no question of stopping, and he reaches across her, blindly, to roll the window back up; they’ll certainly draw attention if they have to sit at a stop sign or crosswalk, a woman in a car screaming out an open window and an unfathomably shaken, ghostly man just driving on. 

In a way, he’s known this had to be coming, but he didn’t expect it to happen with such suddenness, such shocking volume. She’s quiet, his love; she deals with grief by compartmentalizing and internalizing. She buries it deep, and the things that grow from it are such somber, subtle flowers that although anyone who meets her senses the heaviness, the gravity of her, he is sure that he alone can identify all the flora by root and vine. 

These screams pouring out of her now, still — agony, rage, raw and rediscovered bereavement — were nearly a decade in the making, the overdue blossoming of an amorphophallus titanum set off by the unlucky coincidence of today’s date and the incident at the bus stop in the frigid twilight, now a hundred miles distant, left behind like everything else in their lives. 

—————————————

They had been waiting inside the depot, instructed to cross the street to the dollar store parking lot no earlier than 6:00 to get into the burgundy Toyota that would be waiting for them, bare-bones ID documents and a wad of cash in a manila envelope under the mat on the passenger side; it was the best that could be done on such short notice, this flight a sudden one necessitated by their having been made while waiting for their clothes to dry at a laundromat. They’d casually strolled out the back door and then run like hell down the alley behind it; the T-shirts and underwear, presumably, were still there, wrinkles setting permanently in the bottom of the industrial-size drums. 

They stood at the edge of the big plate-glass window fronting the depot, almost back to back behind a rack of cards, candy and maps, scanning 360 degrees between the two of them. Mulder watched from under the bill of his worn-out baseball cap as a bus pulled up and passengers streamed off, blinking and stretching. Some headed for the convenience store next door, some for the field out behind the depot, a couple of people to the parking lot at the other end where cars waited for them, puffing exhaust into the falling evening. 

A young woman, no more than 21 or 22, disembarked last. She held a struggling toddler in her arms, and was trailed by twin girls who looked about four years old. The twins were crying miserably, covered in something wet and purple from their faces to their shoes — grape soda, perhaps. The toddler had his hands entwined in the woman’s dirty blond hair, and she almost dropped him when one of the girls yanked on her elbow. But she managed to hold them all together, then looked around quickly — fearfully, he thought — before herding the whole group inside the station and moving toward the bathroom. 

“Mommy, I’m sick!” wailed the twin in the yellow romper, clutching her stomach.   
Her sister chimed in, weeping “I have to go number two!”

The toddler thrashed and gave a mighty shriek right into her ear, and at that second, the woman made eye contact with Scully, who’d been pretending to read a Michael Crichton novel. He’d watched a brief conversation with no words: 

_Take him for a second?_ her eyes had asked.

_Of course,_ Scully’d silently answered, shoving the book back into the rack and holding her arms out. 

“Thank you, bless you,” the woman mumbled, hustling the girls into the ladies’ room. 

The boy had a smudge of the same sticky stuff across his forehead, but he was a beautiful baby — luminous brown eyes, golden skin, soft wavy blond hair in need of a trim. The very instant he was in Scully’s arms, he quieted, although big wet tears wobbled, waiting to fall. She sat down on a bench with him securely on her lap, fished out a Kleenex and dabbed off the smudge with a little of her own spit, then played peek-a-boo with the tissue and made him smile. She offered him a saltine from a packet in her purse, which he nibbled curiously while he watched her face. 

“What’s your name, little thing?” she’d murmured to him, idly passing the time.

“GACK!” he’d said proudly, smacking his own chest with a dimpled hand.

They’d both smiled at young Jack, and then he’d done an unexpected thing: thrown wide his arms and bear-hugged Scully, burrowing under her chin like he meant to stay there. She closed her eyes over the top of his head, stroking his fleece-clad back, no longer smiling. She wouldn’t look at Mulder, and he began to understand that things were going sideways. 

Outside, people were trickling back onto the bus. Five minutes to six. He’d wondered whether this little family was traveling on; if they were, they’d better get moving. The driver was getting to the end of her cigarette, draining her paper cup of coffee and tossing it in the bin next to where she stood on the sidewalk. 

Still no sign of mom and the twins. The bus driver stretched, coughed, and ambled toward her vehicle, leaving the doors open for now. He glanced back at Scully — still sitting with Jack on her lap, wrapped in each other with their eyes closed. A furrow had appeared between her eyebrows, matching the lines around her drawn-down mouth. He wondered if she was praying, though he hasn’t known her to do that since they’ve been in the wind.

The bus started up. The young woman hurried out of the bathroom with the twins, who were no longer crying and had clean faces at least. She darted over to Scully, eyes frantic, practically snatching Jack out of Scully’s arms in her haste. The boy started thrashing and shrieking again, reaching for Scully with both hands. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” his mother said, “you’re an angel! We have to go, oh my heck if we don’t get out of here tonight he’ll — girls! Let’s go!”   
Jack had flailed at Scully over his mother’s shoulder, shouting “NO! No bye-bye! No Gack bye-bye!”

Scully half stood, arms raising just a little, as if by reflex — then she sat down hard, folding her hands in her lap, her eyes blank as she silently watched them go. 

The woman had made it to the bus just as the door pulled shut, and had to shout and pound on it for the driver to open back up to let them on, but at last they boarded. Mulder tried to quiet his jangled nerves as its taillights disappeared into the gloom. He could’ve gladly gone a lifetime without seeing Scully reach for that child. 

6:05. He’d turned to say something to Scully, but she was already almost to the front door, eyes unreadable, body tense. “Going next door. I’ll meet you over there,” she said to the air just past him. 

He wasn’t about to separate from her now, so after another quick scan around, he’d followed her into the convenience store. He found her at the liquor counter in the back, buying two pints of Wolfschmidt’s vodka and a bag of Cheetos. Not good. She studiously ignored him, paying with cash and keeping her gaze downcast; they’d learned how to be unmemorable, step one of which was to keep anyone from noticing her extremely memorable blue eyes. 

“Let’s go,” she said in a flat, dead voice too low for the clerk to hear, ducking her chin when they were in range of the security camera. They crossed the road and found the car, just where they’d been told it would be, and with the contents as described, minus a working radio. He volunteered for the first shift; she assented wordlessly, cracking open one of the pints as soon as they were out from under the sodium arc lights. 

“Stop for some food?” he asked warily, unnerved by the long pull she took at the neck of the bottle. A shrug. 

He’d looked for the golden arches, or the neon bell, or anything like it, finally finding a Wendy’s near the edge of town. She unwrapped his burger partway for him as he drove, the way they were used to doing for each other, but didn’t acknowledge his thanks; she was taking another gulp of Wolfschmidt’s and tearing into her own meal, such as it was. She ate even less than the half that she normally did — she was actually losing weight on this terrible highway diet of theirs — and let every conversational balloon he sent up fall like a stone to the ground.

The tension between them grew until it was almost corporeal, like a third body in the car, a hulking presence in the backseat. Mulder had to concentrate to get through a massive road construction project in the next town, some twenty miles down deserted highway, and was easing through the last narrowed passage (heart pounding with relief that it hadn’t been a trap, just regular old construction) when he heard the first pint bottle thump, empty, to the floor.   
Maybe she would fall asleep, he thought, wake up hungover but recognizably herself again — 

The sound of the seal on the second bottle cracking open was not a welcome one. 

“Scully,” he ventured, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. “Maybe you should slow down? That is a lot, a lot of vodka.”

A full minute went by in charged silence.

“Not nearly enough,” she answered finally, in a voice as jagged as the rocks at the edge of a pounding sea.

They can’t stop; the next safe place is nearly two hours from here. He just drives. He has no idea how to reach her right now. She’s retreated to somewhere far within, some dark and heavily guarded place he knows has to do with their son — there’s a similar one inside him, a locked room he occasionally walks past without daring even to look at the door — but he doesn’t have the keys to hers anymore, if he ever did. 

So he drives, and she drinks, and the only other sound is the hum of the road, until that first scream comes close to ending everything anyway.

—————————————

It feels like hours — days, years — have passed when the screaming mostly gives way to crying. He’s relieved, but not much; the sounds she’s making now are no less awful, just lower in volume, and his ears may never stop ringing from what they’ve absorbed already. She’s folded almost in two in the seat, head on her knees, body wracked with heaving, wrenching sobs in a keening tenor that he will never be able to forget. She has vomited twice more, wiping her face with fast-food napkins and tossing everything out the window with barely a pause. 

He knows he is witnessing the purest, most raw outpouring of grief he will ever see, and his own broken and grieving heart demands he help her, or at least join her — but his body mechanically overrides it, following his brain’s instruction to get them to safety first, lest it all be for nothing. 

They are on the outskirts of the small city where he’s been instructed to stop for the night. He’d memorized the scant directions to the address, which turns out to be a little house with a covered garage in back; the place looks like a model unit in a starter housing development, new and bland and with no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever. He sends out a mental broadcast of thanks to his motley network of friends and protectors, hoping his gratitude will find its way to them somehow, and wondering how he could ever repay even the smallest of these enormous favors done by people who themselves risk everything to help them. 

Scully seems to be finally, mercifully, slowing down; in between effortful gulps for air, her voice is nearly gone, the tears mostly silent streams down her face, dripping onto her shirt, her denim-covered legs, the upholstery — falling wherever gravity takes them. 

He gets out once the garage door closes, obscuring them from view. He walks around to her side and opens the door. She still won’t look at him, even after he releases her seatbelt and puts out his hand to help her up. Eventually he just takes her in a bear hug, pulling her from the car without any effort on her part — she doesn’t resist, but she isn’t participating, either. He’d think she was passed out, except for the hitching of her breath as she weeps quietly, soaking the shoulder of his sweater. He stands for a moment, embracing her, wondering what to do now. 

At last he says, “Let’s get inside, Scully. Get you to bed, OK?”

They’re the first words he’s spoken since he’d tried to warn her off of drinking more vodka. He’s a little surprised his vocal cords even work. She seems surprised, too — he can feel her startle, just a bit, and her arms come up from her sides to wrap around his waist. After a minute, she nods against his chest, and lets him turn her so that he’s supporting her with one arm as they make their way, haltingly, into the house. 

It’s chilly in there, and the air is stale, but the place is clean and even in the dark — he doesn’t dare turn on a light, making do with what seeps through the windows from the streetlight — it’s not hard to find a bathroom. Scully goes in without shutting the door, her drunken movements clumsy and careless; he waits in the hallway, alert for any sign of trouble, but she uses the facilities, washes her face and rinses her mouth without any further incident. She comes out, eyes still downcast, swiping at fresh tears with her shirtsleeve. 

He wishes she’d look at him — he needs to know where she is now — but a small part of him, convinced he’ll see nothing but blame in her face, is glad that she doesn’t.

She leans on him heavily as he walks her to the closest bedroom. He’ll grab their go-bags out of the car after they’re settled in; for now, he just helps her out of her jeans and eases her under the covers. She curls onto her side, an impossibly tiny crescent shape with a dark spill of hair trailing her on the pillow. He places a wastebasket on the floor right next to the bed — “In case you need to throw up again,” he says gently, and she nods understanding. 

That done, he hesitates; should he stay here in case she needs help? He longs to be with her, but should he go to the other bedroom, to give her some space? Does she want him close by, or out of her sight? 

A hand reaches out to him, and it’s enough of an answer. He sits down on the bed in the curve formed by her body, one hand on her knee and the other stroking her back lightly. She wraps her arm around his waist, giving a watery sigh. 

Eyes closed, she takes a breath, then in a voice scraped painfully raw, and made slushy by drink, whispers, “It’s a year, Mulder. A year, today. Since I — since he’s gone. I thought I dealt with it, but I didn’t.” 

He can’t do anything but nod his head, hoping she knows, wishing he had any words to say that could help even the slightest bit. 

“Thought I was OK. M’not. Never gonna be.” Her mumbles trail off as she falls asleep, and the pain that had been diffuse in his body settles directly in the center of his chest, where he suspects it will stay, maybe forever. And even so, it’s not enough; why can’t he take hers too, why can’t he hold it himself and let her be free of it? He would make that deal, instantly, if it were possible.

But it isn’t, and he can’t, and it’s useless to think of it that way. He makes sure she’s breathing freely, then goes to get himself ready for bed. When he comes back, he curls up behind her, slinging an arm over her waist; it’s always been his favorite position to sleep in with her, and tonight it just seems necessary. He thinks he’ll be awake a long time, listening to the rattle of her breathing through hopelessly clogged sinuses, but he’s so drained that he starts dropping off quickly. 

In the morning, she’ll be horribly hung over, headachy and sick, likely downhearted and slightly ashamed, and he’ll take care of her; he’ll find Advil, water, crackers and ginger ale. They’ll lay low, staying here for another night before hitting the road in the predawn hours of Thursday morning. If the TV has service, they’ll lie on the couch together with their feet in each other’s laps, curtains drawn, watching basic cable and picking their way through the fields of debris now that the 100-year emotional storm has passed, never to be spoken of again. They’ll rediscover that sense — almost of adventure, of vague excitement — at being real outlaws on the lam together; it’s a poor substitute for security, but that’s what’s kept them from sinking into despair up to now. They’ll make it. They will. 

As he feels the tide of sleep pulling him under, he whispers almost soundlessly into her hair the words he couldn’t say as he drove — tenderest words of apology, forgiveness, supplication, love.


End file.
